2018 Forest Biometrics Research Institute Annual Meeting. What did we hear...

Today was the day for the annual FBRI annual meeting where we are supposed to hear about all the great things that have been done with contributors money that is furthering the needs of forestry and improved FPS.  

What we heard…

Morning (10:03 am)

• Jim McWhorter

  • New trajectory

  • Mission

  • What is FBRI?

  • Board of Directors

    • Jim McWhorter - Terra Verde Inc - Chairman
    • Ken Borchert - BIA
    • Marc Vomicil - Starker Forests
    • Brian Sharer - Finite Carbon
    • Don Wales - Hancock Forest Management

  • Staff

    • Dr. James Arney - Senior Biometrician / Executive Office
    • Dr. Dan Opalach - Senior Biometrician
    • Brock Purvis - Tech Support
    • Richard Zabel - WFCA - Logistics and admin support services

  • Audience Introductions (30ish)

  • Nov 13, 2019, Annual meeting 2019

• Ken Borchert

  • What FBRI represents
  • What the board represents
  • Meet 4x a year as a board
  • Phone conference every other month

• Jim Arney

  • Same National Science Council report we have seen since 2002

  • Why does FBRI exist

    • “to make great forestry decisions.”

  • What happened this year

    • 10 things

  • Coming up (2019)

    • Foresters Forum - Feb

    • FBRI Inventory - March

    • BIA (ONLY) Facilitated webinar series - Jan through June

    • Site Grid - May

    • Facilitated webinar series

    • Western mensurationist - June

    • Forest Planning - Sept

    • Annual meeting - Nov

    • What’s New

      • FPS 7.55 new first quarter mainly bug fixes
      • Financials in fps
      • web notes and webinars
      • Cash card
      • SiteGrid
      • LiDAR

• Brock Purvis

  • Tech Support

  • Same Slush Fund email joke from last year

  • Whats the purpose?

    • Support
    • reviews
    • design

  • 180 support requests

  • 45 topics

  • 3 workshops

  • 2 lecture courses

  • Multiple onsite visits

  • Most Common Issues

    • Site_phys and Shp
    • Veg_Lbl for each stands
    • Stands grown to common Rpt_Yr

  • Sitegrid point per 5 acres

    • limited

  • Webinars

    • 2017 (5)

    • 2018 (5)

    • Requests

      • Verifying install
      • Harvest Scheduling

• Jim McWhorter (10:53 am)

  • Same Jim hit by a bus joke
  • Succession

• Dan Opalach

  • History and experiences

  • Independent contractor

  • 10m SiteGrid project

    • Jim A. steps in
    • Jim M. Steps in

• Jim Arney

  • 2017 Fellowship Program

    • University of Idaho

    • Introduction of Students

      • Patrick Whalen

        • Early Silviculture - Cash Card

      • Shawn de France

        • Tree and Stand Density Measures and tree competition models

      • Halli Hemingway

        • 10M site
        • Project Video

    • Mark Kimsey - U Idaho\

Lunch (12:00 pm - 1:00 pm)

Afternoon (1:05 pm)

• Shawn de France

  • Slideshow on project

• Brian Sharer

  • Financials

    • Loss of about 8 contributors
    • Estimated $38k shortfall for 2018 from estimated income
    • Significant over budget for 2018
    • Large expenses for travel
    • Projection of the $0.07 per acre with expenses
    • Board passed fee increase to the $0.07 / Acre in April 2018
    • Grants are going to spontaneously appear in the budget.  Some of them are with the SBIR program
    • $1million surplus estimated 2023

• Jim Arney

  • Grants

    • Forest Biometrics LLC received 5 previous grants
    • SBIR Grants were used to develop and build FBRI
    • Climate change and LiDAR grants have been applied for

  • Nelder Plot Designs for Growth Models

  • Stories

• Jim McWhorter (2:23 pm)

  • Closing

What are your thoughts? Did you hear what you wanted? Want more or less? let us know.